Sacramento State President Robert Nelsen introduced Mark Orr as the university’s fourth athletic director in six years Monday in the Terrace Suite at The WELL.
Orr, 40, leaves behind his role as Director of Athletics and Recreational Sports at Saint Mary’s College — which he has held since 2006 after becoming the youngest (30) athletic director in Division I athletics — and will begin working under his five-year contract for Sac State on April 17.
“As I told President Nelsen, I won’t let any of you down,” Orr said to a packed audience in his introductory press conference overlooking Hornet Stadium. “I will give my heart and soul to this program, to this city, to this university. I am confident that we have several quality pieces in place and I hope to be able to add to those. The time is now for Hornet athletics, there is no time to wait.”
Orr — who was born and raised in Sacramento — beat out multiple candidates for the position, including University of Louisiana-Monroe Athletic Director Brian Wickstrom, Oregon State University Deputy Athletic Director Mark Massari and executive director of university business partnership and services at Cal, Solomon Fulp.
“I think that (Nelsen) made a good choice — he vetted four strong candidates, and he took the one that met all the requirements he was looking for,” Sac State Interim Athletic Director John Volek said. “All of the boxes were checked with Mark Orr: sitting AD, experience building an events center at Saint Mary’s and you can see the success in the athletics programs in the NCAA Tournaments and a community guy that can reach out to Sacramento and has community ties here that run deep.”
After graduating from Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento and playing football at the defensive back position for four years at Cal, Orr helped lead Saint Mary’s to the creation of the $30 million Joseph L. Alioto Recreation Center in Moraga. Orr will be tasked with a similar opportunity as Sac State has struggled to upgrade from its 1,012-seat multi-purpose gymnasium (the Nest) built 62 years ago.
“I’ll be out in the community shaking hands and telling our story, telling why we need the events center and why somebody’s contribution will make a big difference here,” Orr said. “I know the Hornets Nest isn’t the largest facility, but it’s what we got (and) sometimes if you’re having success on the athletic field, it’s much easier to go out in the community and get financial support — so we’ll invest the time into our students, our student-athletes and our coaches to keep doing a good job there.”
Another point of emphasis for Orr is the state of the Sac State football program — which is coming off of back-to-back two-win seasons under coach Jody Sears — who is in the final year of his contract. Despite Saint Mary’s not fielding a football team since 2004, Orr said he believes that he has “some expertise in the sport” after over a decade of on-the-field experience and is excited for the challenge.
“I haven’t had a chance to spend a lot of time with coach Sears yet, and I look forward to partnering with him and being able to evaluate the program and what steps we need to take to make it better,” Orr said. “Obviously, we cannot be satisfied with winning two games this season. Our student body, our community deserves better than that so I’m looking forward to getting after it and taking a look at it.”
During Orr’s tenure at Saint Mary’s, the Gaels made 17 NCAA postseason appearances, including a trip to the Sweet 16 for the men’s basketball program in 2010. The athletics program also increased its revenue by 150 percent in the last five years and graduated 93 percent of its student-athletes in the 2015-16 school year.
“One of the things that was most important to us was to find someone who understands compliance, somebody who used the word student and used it often when he was talking about the athletes, someone who believed in the program and someone who was not going to be afraid of moving us forward,” Nelsen said. “Getting better facilities because we deserve them, our students deserve them, the university deserves it. We need the events center and he’s going to help us get that event center. (We were) looking for a real leader — we found it in Mark Orr.”
Additional reporting by Alec Romero